Alternate pulses of ultrasound and electricity enhanced electrochemical process for p-nitrophenol degradation.

A novel alternated ultrasonic and electric pulse enhanced electrochemical process was developed and used for investigating its effectiveness on the degradation of p-nitrophenol (PNP) in an aqueous solution. The impacts of pulse mode, pH, cell voltage, supporting electrolyte concentration, ultrasonic power and the initial concentration of PNP on the performance of PNP degradation were evaluated. Possible pathway of PNP degradation in this system was proposed based on the intermediates identified by GC-MS. Experimental results showed that 94.1% of PNP could be removed at 2h in the dual-pulse ultrasound enhanced electrochemical (dual-pulse US-EC) process at mild operating conditions (i.e., pulse mode of electrochemical pulse time (TEC)=50 ms and ultrasonic pulse time (T US)=100 ms, initial pH of 3.0, cell voltage of 10 V, Na2SO4 concentration of 0.05 M, ultrasonic powder of 48.8 W and initial concentration of PNP of 100mg/L), compared with 89.0%, 58.9%, 2.4% in simultaneous ultrasound enhanced electrochemical (US-EC) process, pulsed electrochemical (EC) process and pulsed ultrasound (US), respectively. Moreover, energy used in the dual-pulse US-EC process was reduced by 50.4% as compared to the US-EC process. The degradation of PNP in the pulsed EC process, US-EC process and dual-pulse process followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. Therefore, the dual-pulse US-EC process was found to be a more effective technique for the degradation of PNP and would have a promising application in wastewater treatment.

Degradation of nitrobenzene in aqueous solution by dual-pulse ultrasound enhanced electrochemical process.

The present work reports a novel dual-pulse ultrasound enhanced electrochemical degradation (US-ECD) process that synchronizes alternatively ultrasound pulses and potential pulses to degrade nitrobenzene in aqueous solution with a high percentage degradation and low energy consumption. In comparison to the test results generated from the conventional US-ECD and original electrochemical degradation (ECD) process, the dual-pulse US-ECD process increased degradation percentages to nitrobenzene by 2% and 17%, respectively, while energy used in the pulse process was only about 46.5% of that was used in the conventional US-ECD process. Test results demonstrated a superior performance of the dual-pulse US-ECD process over those of other conventional ones. Impacts of pulse mode, initial pH value, cell voltage, supporting electrolyte concentration and ultrasonic power on the process performances were investigated. With operation conditions optimized in the study at pH=3.0, cell voltage=10 V, ultrasonic power=48.84 W, electrolyte concentration=0.1M and an experiment running time of 30 min, the percentage degradation of nitrobenzene could reach 80% (US pulse time=50 ms and ECD pulse time=50 ms). This process provided a reliable and effective technical approach to degrade nitrobenzene in aqueous solution and significantly reduced energy consumption in comparison to the conventional US-ECD or original ECD treatment.